Health Watch: Lead children to fitness

Weekly Health Watch rail, with items on children and fitness, number to know, vaccine study and senior health.

Tip of the Week

Introducing kids to sports is a great way to spend time together and encourage an active lifestyle at a young age. Here’s how to get the ball rolling:

Limit screen time. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting children’s screen time to no more than or two hours a day. This means setting limits on TV, iPad and gaming time.

Get involved. Instead of handing your child a soccer ball and heading back inside, join and instruct them. Make 15 minutes of playing catch or kicking a ball back and forth part of your family’s normal routine.

Use what you have. Driveways offer a plethora of athletic options, with no field necessary. Get out those jump ropes, hula-hoops or a basketball. Get a quick game of hoops started or play a game of four-square.

Run a race. This time of year is filled with one-mile runs and 5K races, and they’re not just limited to adults. Finishing a race not only teaches your children that they can have fun being healthy, but can do wonders to boost their self-esteem.

— Life Fitness

Number to Know

9.5: Number of miles a soccer player has been tracked running during the course of a game, according to STATS SportVU Tracking Technology.

Children’s Health

Evidence from a review published in the medical journal Pediatrics strongly suggests that side effects from vaccines are extremely rare. The analysis of 67 research studies found no ties between vaccines and the rising number of children with autism or between vaccines and childhood leukemia.

Researchers did find that some vaccines caused a few adverse effects — a severe reaction in children allergic to ingredients of the vaccine, for example — but those complications are “extremely rare” and pale in comparison to the great benefit of vaccinations

Senior Health

Researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore have found evidence that the less older adults sleep, the faster their brains age. These findings open the way for future work on sleep loss and its contribution to cognitive decline, including dementia.